Re: Python docs disappointing
I am a newbie and about a month old with Python. There is a wealth of material about Python and I am really enjoying learning Python. One thing that could have helped Python documentation is that instead of the very raw doc string, it could have used something like PythonDoc (java doc style) so that the functions/classes are documented better. At least I am planning to use PythonDoc for the code that I am going to write. Let me know if there is a better one.. -mohan On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 1:10 PM, kj no.em...@please.post wrote: I'm pretty new to Python, and I like a lot overall, but I find the documentation for Python rather poor, overall. I'm sure that Python experts don't have this problem: they have internalized some good ways to access the documentation, are productive with it, and therefore have lost the ability to see why the Python documentations is deficient for beginners. This explains why a suboptimal situation can persist like this: those who are most able fix it are also the least able to perceive it. I've heard similar complaints from other experienced programmers who are trying out Python for the first time: poor documentation. Here is an *entirely typical* example: on some Unix, try % pydoc urllib The displayed documentation mention the optional parameter data in practically every function listed (a few dozen of them). This parameter is not documented *anywhere* on that page. All that we are told is that its default value is always None. I'm sure that I can find a full description of this parameter if I fire up Google, and search online. In fact, more likely than not, I'll find far more documentation than I want. But my point is that a programmer should not need to do this. The full documentation should be readily accessible directly through a few keystrokes. I would love to know how experienced Python programmers quickly zero in on the Python documentation they need. TIA! kynn -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Bridging Python and C
Hi, I am a newbie. It looks like there are quite a few ways to bridge Python and C. I have a bunch of C code and I just need Python wrappers for it. If i google for this I get SWIG, Boost etc. And I also see http://www.python.org/doc/2.5.2/ext/intro.html What is the recommended way for doing this ? thanks mohan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Calling functions: Why this complicated ?
Chris, Thanks for your clarifications I am a newbie. I am reading http://www.network-theory.co.uk/docs/pytut/KeywordArguments.html Defining a function with N arguments and calling them in M different ways. Why does it have to be this complicated ? I like the idea of calling the function by explicitly naming the arguments, but there are so many other ways here that is very confusing. Do people really use all these features ? Perhaps, there is a equivalent book to Javascript: Good Parts for Python ? Oh $DEITY, don't even compare Python to JavaScript. At least in Python, when you try to access a non-existent attribute, a proper NameError exception is thrown rather than silently getting back undefined... (*has traumatic horror story flashback*) I did not try to compare python to Javascript. Just because there are ten different ways of doing certain things, not all of them may be used. Over a period of time, people tend to use certain features more and more. Javascript is a different beast where some of the features need to be avoided for writing good programs. I don't know anything about python. But it is possible that there is a subset that people use frequently which may be sufficient to write good programs. Sure, that would not help me the python interview test :-) The calling syntax is not so much complicated as it is liberating. Are you a C junkie who has never heard of named arguments? Just use the call sequence like you've always done. Are you a exacting Smalltalk or Objective-C person who likes to name all the arguments all the time for clarity? You can do that. That's where I fit. I did not expect to see more than that :-) Do you want to call a function with lots of default arguments but only want to override a couple of them? Specifying them by name lets you do that succinctly. Do you not want to have to worry about the order of the parameters because it seems kinda arbitrary? Then specify the arguments by name. etc... And if you try and specify an argument twice, Python will throw an error, so anything truly confusing will get caught right away. And there's only one definition syntax, so while the call could be complicated, figuring out what it means by looking to the definition is fairly easy. There really aren't that many ways it's done in practice. In practice, the following styles cover 90% of cases: - All named arguments: foo(bar=a, baz=b, qux=c) - All sequential arguments: foo(a, b, c) - All sequential arguments, with a few optional arguments given by name: foo(a, b, c, flag=True, style=qux) - Simple pass-through: foo(*args, **kwargs) Granted, there's 4 of them, but each taken by itself seems pretty easy to read, IMHO. So, all four of them above has its use cases in practice i guess. thanks mohan Cheers, Chris -- http://blog.rebertia.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Seeking old post on developers who like IDEs vs developers who like simple languages
On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 12:31 AM, Ulrich Eckhardt eckha...@satorlaser.comwrote: Steve Ferg wrote: On the one hand, there are developers who love big IDEs with lots of features (code generation, error checking, etc.), and rely on them to provide the high level of support needed to be reasonably productive in heavy-weight languages (e.g. Java). On the other hand there are developers who much prefer to keep things light-weight and simple. They like clean high-level languages (e.g. Python) which are compact enough that you can keep the whole language in your head, and require only a good text editor to be used effectively. This distinction is IMHO not correct. If you took a look at Java, you would notice that the core language syntax is much simpler than Python's. OTOH, if you add the standard libraries, you would soon see that Python's libraries are not as consistent (i.e. conformant to PEP8) as Java's. What makes up for Python's perceived usability problems though is the commandline parser that allows you to inspect the type of an object and its parts of it at runtime, in particular the docstrings are a treasure there. That said, an IDE that provides auto-completion (e.g. that gives you a list of available class members) is a good thing in Java, because you don't have to browse the documentation as often. With Python, that is impossible because there are no types bound to parameters, so any type that fits is allowed (duck typing). I just downloaded the Aptana IDE which has Python support and I have not tried it yet. But I remebered seeing this thread. Has anyone used the Aptana IDE for Python development ? thanks mohan Uli -- Sator Laser GmbH Geschäftsführer: Thorsten Föcking, Amtsgericht Hamburg HR B62 932 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Performance java vs. python
On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 5:56 AM, Aahz a...@pythoncraft.com wrote: In article mff7e6-e43@satorlaser.homedns.org, Ulrich Eckhardt eckha...@satorlaser.com wrote: Steve Ferg wrote: On the one hand, there are developers who love big IDEs with lots of features (code generation, error checking, etc.), and rely on them to provide the high level of support needed to be reasonably productive in heavy-weight languages (e.g. Java). On the other hand there are developers who much prefer to keep things light-weight and simple. They like clean high-level languages (e.g. Python) which are compact enough that you can keep the whole language in your head, and require only a good text editor to be used effectively. This distinction is IMHO not correct. If you took a look at Java, you would notice that the core language syntax is much simpler than Python's. That's half-true. The problem is that you have to digest a much bigger chunk of Java before you can start being productive. Consider how simple it is to write a non-regex grep in Python. In addition, Python's object model is simpler than Java's, not even talking about the contortions that Java's static class model forces you into. I am new to Python. I am slowly realizing that Python might be a better choice when compared to java on the server side. Is there any performance comparison between Java and Python ? For example, if I use the J2EE solution vs. python (Django etc.) on the server side, would one perform better over the other ? -mohan P.S: I have changed the subject line to reflect the new thread -- Aahz (a...@pythoncraft.com) * http://www.pythoncraft.com/ In 1968 it took the computing power of 2 C-64's to fly a rocket to the moon. Now, in 1998 it takes the Power of a Pentium 200 to run Microsoft Windows 98. Something must have gone wrong. --/bin/fortune -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Performance java vs. python
On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 10:42 AM, Daniel Fetchinson fetchin...@googlemail.com wrote: On the one hand, there are developers who love big IDEs with lots of features (code generation, error checking, etc.), and rely on them to provide the high level of support needed to be reasonably productive in heavy-weight languages (e.g. Java). On the other hand there are developers who much prefer to keep things light-weight and simple. They like clean high-level languages (e.g. Python) which are compact enough that you can keep the whole language in your head, and require only a good text editor to be used effectively. This distinction is IMHO not correct. If you took a look at Java, you would notice that the core language syntax is much simpler than Python's. That's half-true. The problem is that you have to digest a much bigger chunk of Java before you can start being productive. Consider how simple it is to write a non-regex grep in Python. In addition, Python's object model is simpler than Java's, not even talking about the contortions that Java's static class model forces you into. I am new to Python. I am slowly realizing that Python might be a better choice when compared to java on the server side. Is there any performance comparison between Java and Python ? For example, if I use the J2EE solution vs. python (Django etc.) on the server side, would one perform better over the other ? Benchmarks always test for a given feature. The available benchmarks will most likely not test the feature relevant for your particular application simply because there are about a gazillion different ways of using a web framework. So the best you can do is simply test the bottleneck part of your application and see for yourself, otherwise you will be left with comments like django is used at work because it's faster for us or I use j2ee because performance is better for my web app. When it will come to choosing your framework these will help little to none. Ah! I should have been careful before asking such general question about performance. I agree with you. But mine was more academic. I should not given a specific example. AFAIK, for java on the client side, JVM performance is one of the critical things which has been tuned to death until now. Even Google's Android which uses Java for the programming language uses a Dalvik Virtual machine which was spefically designed to handle low CPU, memory and power environments. Similarly, Python can also be used to program on Nokia phones etc. Of course programming natively (C/C++) would make a difference in environments where CPU, memory and power are a big constraint. Given the context, do we know how Python compares with Java or even native programming. What is the overhead of Python's interpreted code ? Some standard benchmarks would help compare apples to apples though it may not help deciding which framework to choose. -mohan Cheers, Daniel -- Psss, psss, put it down! - http://www.cafepress.com/putitdown -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Circular relationship: object - type
Hi, I have read several articles and emails: http://www.cafepy.com/article/python_types_and_objects/python_types_and_objects.html#relationships-transitivity-figure http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2007-February/600128.html I understand how type serves to be the default metaclass when an object is created and it also can be changed. I also read a few examples on why this metaclass can be a powerful concept. What I fail to understand is the circular relationship between object and type. Why does type have to be subclassed from object ? Just to make Everything is an object and all objects are inherited from object class. Why can't just type be the class from which object class is instantiated ? Why does it have to be a subclass of object also ? Sorry if this has been answered before. Thanks in advance, mohan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
How to see the code definiton in the shell ?
Hi, I am new to Python. I tried searching this but could not find an answer. In the interactive shell, I write a new function and I want to be able to see all the code that I wrote at a later time. Just typing the function name only shows allmethods function allmethods at 0x822b0 How do I see the actual code ? thanks mohan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
